Having turned 26 years old earlier this month, Columbus Blue Jackets winger Alex Nylander hasn’t been a prospect for quite some time. However, with eight goals and three assists through 17 games this season – all that production coming in 12 games since his Columbus call-up on February 25th – it is worth digging into whether this eighth-overall pick from 2016 is about to become a late-blooming producer like Jonathan Marchessault or Carter Verhaeghe, or whether this is a blip on the radar. 

Drafted in the famed 2016 Draft that includes Auston Matthews, Patrik Laine, Matthew Tkachuk, and Clayton Keller, Nylander was a bit of a divisive player. At the time, Corey Pronman – now with The Athletic – wrote, “His skill level and his offensive hockey sense are elite… overall he makes plays few other